Time For Change? Permanent Daylight Saving Time Bill Awaiting US Senate Action

Michigan Advance

October 28, 2026

Most of the nation returns to standard time Sunday morning, and Congress could decide as early as next month whether it will be the last time people have to change their clocks.

President Donald Trump wants year-round daylight saving time. The U.S. House voted overwhelmingly in July for the change. Lots of Democrats and Republicans are behind the idea.

Yet, any momentum has stalled. The legislation can’t get out of the U.S. Senate, and it looks unlikely there’ll be much progress anytime soon.

Senators are due to return to Washington from a lengthy recess on Nov. 9, and a push for year-round daylight saving time is expected. But it faces strong opposition from senators in rural areas and those who represent states where children could be walking to school in darkness for most of the winter.

“No one likes changing the clock, me included, but Congress has enacted permanent Daylight Saving Time multiple times before and repealed it each time once Americans experienced absurdly late sunrises in the winter,” Sen. Tom Cotton said in a tweet. The Arkansas Republican’s office referred to that Oct. 3 post when asked for comment last week.

The other side is just as dug in.

“People are sick and tired of having to change their Clocks twice a year,” Trump posted on Truth Social earlier this month. In another post, he criticized Cotton and apparently gave out the senator’s cell phone number.

The Washington fight over time is timeless.

Standardizing time became more important in the mid-19th century as railroads expanded. Until then, local time depended largely on the position of the sun.

The Standard Time Act in 1918 established five time zones in the U.S., including what was then the territory of Alaska. Not all states liked the idea and were given the option of using daylight saving time, according to a report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

That hodgepodge of time policies ended in 1966 when the Uniform Time Act became law, requiring most states to change clocks annually on the last Sunday of April and the last Sunday of October.

The energy crisis of the early 1970s allowed the use of daylight saving time in parts of the winters of 1974 and 1975. It proved largely unpopular, as sunrises after 8 a.m. in sections of the nation meant schools opened in darkness.

A 1975 report to Congress by the federal Transportation Department said lengthening the period for daylight saving time would produce “modest overall benefits,” but added they were “small and difficult to isolate completely from the larger effects of seasonal patterns and changes in energy availability and prices.”

Since then, there have been some tweaks as support for changes grew. Daylight saving time now runs from the second Sunday in March through the first Sunday in November, allowing the baseball season and trick-or-treaters to have later daylight.

Supporters for year-round daylight saving time contend that the nation has changed since the 1960s and 1970s, as tourism and recreation have boomed.

Fifty-six percent said they preferred daylight saving time year-round, an AP-NORC poll a year ago found.

The House debate in July over the Sunshine Protection Act, which would allow year-round daylight saving time in most of the country, attracted strong praise from members of both parties.

“For decades, Americans have been asking a simple question: Why are we forcing families, businesses, and communities to adjust their schedules every spring and fall? The twice-yearly clock change is a relic of the past that no longer reflects the way Americans live, work, and conduct business in the 21st century,” said Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., chairman of the House subcommittee on commerce, manufacturing and trade.

Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., echoed that sentiment.

“Taking this action will increase the sunshine hours in the evening, allowing many Americans to leave work for more sunlight in the winter months, not darkness,” Pallone, the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said.

More evening daylight, he said, would provide “a needed boost to our tourism industry. Extra sunlight means more time at the beach, more time eating out at restaurants, and more time doing outdoor leisure activities.”

One of the few voices of opposition came from Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa.

“Early morning light is an important environmental cue to set our bodies’ internal clocks and promote alertness, and dim evening light tells our bodies that it is time to sleep,” she said.

The bill passed by a 308-17 vote, with 193 Republicans, 114 Democrats and one independent voting in favor.

Senators represent broader constituencies than House members, and more people on their states’ westernmost or northernmost edges could be more affected than others.

For example, If daylight saving time continued beyond Sunday in Arkansas, sunrise would occur in most of the state after 8 a.m. during much of the winter. January sunrise in Little Rock currently can be as late as 8:17 a.m. if daylight saving time were used year-round.

“Three months out of the year, kids in towns like Bentonville, Fayetteville, and Fort Smith would start school ahead of the sun,” Cotton said.

Senators from rural areas have also expressed concern. Sunrise in Des Moines in December and January would be as late as 8:41 a.m. In Lincoln, Nebraska, it would be 10 minutes later than that.

Further north, there’s a different take on changing clocks.

“My state, where it is often dark earlier than 4 p.m. in the winter, has made it abundantly clear we want permanent Daylight Saving Time,” Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash, said.

The Senate did pass the Sunshine Protection Act four years ago, but it went nowhere in the House. Today, Senate supporters face two procedural hurdles.

One is simply having time for lawmakers to consider the bill.

The Senate is scheduled to be in session for 22 days the rest of this year. During that period, senators must pass legislation to pay government bills beyond Dec. 11, when funding expires, and are expected to take up other major legislation, notably defense policy.

If the daylight bill does reach the floor, it would need 60 votes to proceed. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters this summer that it remains to be seen whether that many senators support the measure.

“Your geography probably has as much to do with your position on that as anything,” he told Politico last week. His office did not respond to a request for further comment.

This much is assured: Most of the country will set their clocks back one hour at 2 a.m. local time on Sunday. And the odds are good they’ll move them forward again on March 8, 2027.

The Michigan Advance, a hard-hitting, nonprofit news site, covers politics and policy across the state of Michigan through in-depth stories, blog posts, and social media updates, as well as top-notch progressive commentary. The Advance is part of States Newsroom, a national 501(c)(3) nonprofit supported by grants and a coalition of donors and readers.